Chained
by SpraceJunkie
Summary: How much time, nobody could tell. Sometimes fear sped time up, sometimes time was slow, and the single grimy window didn't let in enough outside light to let the boys judge. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours.
**Written For Circulation One, Season Two of the Newsies Pape Selling Competition.**
 **Team: Kings of New York**  
 **Position** **: Reporter**  
 **Assignment One: Write about a newsie being caught in the Refuge. Any newsie can be used here, and any situation you feel is needed to get them caught in there. Then: how do they react? Do they survive? Are they beaten? Etc.**  
 ** _  
_** _North or South, North or South, North or South._  
Whispers swept around the room as soon as he was thrown roughly onto a bed, bleeding. He looked unconscious, unrecognizable, until he swung his legs over the bed and sat up, hanging his head an spitting blood down onto the already filthy floor. Whispers stilled, watching the newcomer, even though they still didn't recognize him. And then he lifted his head, pulling a sleeve over the cuts and bruises, wiping away blood and dirt. Everybody was quiet, watching, and then something clicked.  
 _Spot Conlon, Spot Conlon, Spot Conlon._  
The whispers floated around again, dying out once more when Spot Conlon's icy glare hit each of them in turn.  
 _North._  
One brave soul whispered, feeling safe in their hiding place behind the rest of the boys.  
"If you has something to say, you damn well better say it to my face." Spot spat, literally, adding to the small pool of blood already at his feet. He was missing his trademarks. His slingshot wasn't hanging off a belt loop, his cane was nowhere to be seen, his cap was gone, and even his pink suspenders had been taken. "That's what I thought." He said when nobody spoke up. He wiped his face again, and only those closest to him could hear his slight hiss of pain when his sleeve snagged on a cut and caused more blood to flow. Nobody made eye contact, they stayed huddled in their groups and tried hard to not look at the king as he cleaned his face.  
"Being unconscious might keep you out of the North wing for a while, your majesty." One of the younger boys said quietly, still avoiding Spot's gaze. Spot glared at him specifically, causing the kid to shrink back and look down.  
"I'm gonna end up there one way or another, kid, why wait?"  
Everybody was almost silent for a time. How much time, nobody could tell. Sometimes fear sped time up, sometimes time was slow, and the single grimy window didn't let in enough outside light to let the boys judge. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. Spot would occasionally spit on the floor again, but he refused to lie down, staying upright and keeping a steady glare in place.  
And then the door swung open and hit the wall and all the boys except Spot stood up and pressed against the walls. Spot remained seated, not even bothering to look up at whoever entered.  
"Well, well, well. The little mister is awake." Spot recognized the voice instantly. Anybody who lived on the streets knew the voice of Snyder the Spider. Even boys who didn't live in Manhattan. Snyder the Spider was known from Staten Island to the Bronx. "How's our newest little thief doing tonight?" Spot watched Snyder's boots come closer and closer, the fancy boots every street rat knew. Preacher's boots, worn by people who had enough money to buy good shoes, leather, dark, stained, fitted with steel heel plates to make them click. The boots every fancy man who wasn't rich wore to let the poor know he was coming.  
 _Click. Click. Click. Click._  
Slow and steady, approaching around the bed and stopping right in front of Spot. Looking up to meet his captor's eye, Spot spat once again, his fresh glob of blood landing perfectly on top of the warden's left boot, leaving a pool of liquid to slide slowly down to the floor. Neither Spot nor Snyder missed the rustle that flew around the boys bordering the room. Spot didn't allow his face to change except for allowing a smirk through. He knew that the fist would swing out and connect with his jaw, he was not prepared for how much it would hurt. He felt another tooth break loose and spat it out, keeping his face carefully blank. This was a psychological game, and Spot Conlon never lost a game. Snyder would try to break him, try to show everybody that every kid could be show that he was in charge, but he wouldn't hurt him bad enough that he couldn't work. At least, that's what Spot was riding on as he spat his newly missing tooth out onto Snyder's other boot. This time he wasn't met with a punch, the Spider's boot came up to slam into his shin. Spot just barely contained a gasp of pain, and he knew that his face tightened and that he'd be favoring his left leg for a while.  
"Well, boy, if you're well enough for that you're well enough to work. You're going to North." Spot made eye contact with the boy he knew had been the one to say he'd being going North, tilting his head slightly in acknowledgement. The boy's eyes widened; he clearly hadn't been aware Spot had noted who he was. And then Snyder had his hand roughly gripping Spot's collar and was more dragging Spot out of the room than leading him.  
And then everything was pain all the time. From the bruises that never healed, to the headache that seemed to build and build and build until it blocked out all noise except the throbbing, pounding of his own heartbeat, and the limp that was kicked back into existence every time it felt like it might be getting better. And then the work, the work that was harder than anything Spot had ever done before. And Spot had done some hard things, mentally and physically, and somehow the work he was being forced to do was harder than all of that. Winding thin, metal wires together to make traps or whatever they were really making, and without gloves to stop the wire from cutting deep into their palms and fingers, and the same wire wound into sieves, slicing open blisters. It was a miracle, Spot thought with the dry humor that was keeping him alive, it was a miracle that people weren't buying things stained or rusted from the blood of the kids who were forced to construct them. The kids, who under further observation as Spot tried to ignore his way out of the Refuge, knew exactly what was going on at all times and somehow resigned themselves to being trapped in a living hell for however long it took them to either die or get out.  
Spot couldn't do that.  
He couldn't resign himself to anything being out of his control, he couldn't let himself be controlled and pushed and hurt without fighting back; that's not who he was. So he did fight back, he insulted and messed up on his work on purpose, he smirked, pretended not to understand, fought back when the guards beat him, fought back when anybody at all touched him. It was stupid, he knew, and pointless, he knew, but it gave him back some of his power, it took away his feeling of total helplessness, and Spot hated feeling helpless.  
Angering the guards, fighting back through all the pain in order to numb all the pain, only made the pain worse, in the end. Because every time he opened his mouth with a new comment, every time he blocked a hit or swung his own fist, every time he looked up with a defiant look in his eye, they went out of their way to increase his work or to add a new bruise to his face or re-break his nose for the hundredth time, and it seemed like whenever he thought the pain had built up to the point he should have been numb, something new broke through again and suddenly his arm was twisted behind him again or the never ending headache was pounding a new, painful rhythm into his skull and he realized, yet again, he realized he somehow hadn't know how painful pain could be.  
Which, strangely, became a comforting thought as soon as his arms were hoisted above his head and he was lifted into the air by his thumbs.  
 _There's worse. I will feel worse. Worse will come._  
And that was the only thing anybody heard leave his mouth as he hung there for the seconds that stretched into minutes that stretched into hours, and his arms stretched and he could definitely feel his thumbs dislocate or break or something that was painful, and it was harder and harder to breathe as something entered his lungs and gave him less space to breathe.  
"Little man ready to act his age, or does he need some more time hanging out alone?" The guard laughed lowly at his own bad joke. Spot kicked at him as hard as he was able, swinging himself boots first at his chest. The guard hissed and swiped his legs away in dismissal, sending Spot swinging out of control for a few seconds. "Guess not. Have a nice night."  
The next morning the whispers flooded the dorms again as the wagon left out the gate.  
 _North kids, north kids, north kids._  
 _Four of them, four of them, four of them._  
The careful counters that spread the information were as specific as the could be, sending the ripples of information throughout their ranks.  
 _Who?_  
There was always the one who needed to know more.  
 _Alex, Alex, Alex._  
 _And Storm, Storm, Storm too._  
 _Blade is on top of somebody, Blade, Blade._  
Nobody missed the sudden blanching of the two boys at the window, the flurry of whispers that went between them quickly as they tried to agree on who was under Blade on the wagon of bodies.  
 _And…And? And who? And…_  
 _Spot Conlon, Spot Conlon, Spot Conlon._  
 _If he couldn't make it, how can we?_  
The question, asked by one of the faces hidden in the back, was only answered with looks. They knew. Every boy in the Refuge knew. If Spot Conlon couldn't survive the hell that was the North Wing, neither would they.

 **Ahahahahaha what a lovely way to make my bursting way into the world of Competitive Fanfic writing! Who even knew that was a thing? Not me until FansieFace told me all about it but it was too late to join until this one! Yay! Also this prompt was fabulous and I loved writing it, because, you know, I really love bashing the fam of faves that pretty much consists of the entire Newsies universe!**


End file.
